Ambrosial Wine Experiments

The Ambrosia Society was created by Don Teeter as a result of his research into Amanita Muscaria. They came to some very interesting conclusions although some of their work related to what they called 'the fleece' was later shown to be erroneous.
Mcpato
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Re: Ambrosial Wine Experiments

Post by Mcpato » Sun Feb 02, 2020 4:11 am

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So to answer your question @Nightbears , I dont have any examples of Teeter's methods, minus previous living bread examples, which I've posted, but This is my 2nd attempt at what I call the reverse grail. Its basically just Teeter's holy-grail method in reverse. Instead of a wooden or clay vessel, mine is just glass, but inside are small blocks of wood that i decided to cook in some grain (i used bulgur this time with a bit of sugar) and then allowed the fleece to colonize. I started this about 3 weeks ago, and this pic is a week old, its even more black with sporulation and i think pretty dry. Probably ready for its 2nd soak. I believe this reverse grail is actually much more accessible, much simpler, and has the advantages of being easily placed into new containers or even multiplied. It will probably be pretty weak until the 3rd or 4th soak, thats what I've heard at least... Anyways, please feel free to try, change, modify, or add upon my idea, but with the caveat that you share your insight!
Have you successfully cultivated any of the fleece yet? The only real drawback with this method so far is the wood tends to float and may need a method (like a sterilized rock?) of keeping it all submerged. I think something like clay rods would work well.

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Re: Ambrosial Wine Experiments

Post by Kill_blind_elite » Thu May 28, 2020 3:56 am

Whoah, what the hell guys. Most of those are contamination. Black is not what you want unless you know something that i don't. I mean, if you drop amanita chunks straight in it and the chunks turn black without black growing anywhere else, that is fine and would jist be the dying flesh of the mushroom. The whole thing should be pure white fuzz. I'm scared for you guys if you are drinking stuff with black in it. Anything green or black, orange, blue, red as well as yellow or grey those are all contamination. I used to grow mushrooms and i also brew meads. Which is what I'm making right now. I pasteurized everything and used one step sanitizing rinser with everything, not letting it touch anything but air for five minutes. , not the open mouth on the carboy, just 20 seconds on that. If mine doesn't turn out pure white like mycelium should be then it's going in the garbage and I'll inoculate it next time by growing it in small mason jars and then cutting out samples and throwing them in the pasteurized carboy.
I got on here cause i needed to ask some questions. I have read the book and also there is a video of don making fleece ambrosia on youtube. I was trying that method but with mead mash, (honey water) that is sterile.
Like i said, i sanitized everything with a no rinse solution for sanitizing brewing equipment and i didn't have tyvek shipping material like in his video, so I used an airlock and have breathable paper material on the outside of the airlock to reduce any mold contamination. I was just trying to find out if anyone had made this with a carboy and used any alternatives to tyvek and what they think i should have done. I mean it's done already and it's either going to be clear or contaminated, so now it's a waiting game. This is the middle of the virus bs, i i couldn't get sanitizer or isopropal to put in the airlock instead of water. That's something that some brewers use as a trick. I am wondering if i should have thrown yeast in it to keep the wild yeasts in it from making it taste like shit.
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Re: Ambrosial Wine Experiments

Post by Mcpato » Thu Jun 04, 2020 1:46 am

Kill_blind_elite wrote:
Thu May 28, 2020 3:56 am
Whoah, what the hell guys. Most of those are contamination. Black is not what you want unless you know something that i don't. I mean, if you drop amanita chunks straight in it and the chunks turn black without black growing anywhere else, that is fine and would jist be the dying flesh of the mushroom. The whole thing should be pure white fuzz. I'm scared for you guys if you are drinking stuff with black in it. Anything green or black, orange, blue, red as well as yellow or grey those are all contamination. I used to grow mushrooms and i also brew meads. Which is what I'm making right now. I pasteurized everything and used one step sanitizing rinser with everything, not letting it touch anything but air for five minutes. , not the open mouth on the carboy, just 20 seconds on that. If mine doesn't turn out pure white like mycelium should be then it's going in the garbage and I'll inoculate it next time by growing it in small mason jars and then cutting out samples and throwing them in the pasteurized carboy.
I got on here cause i needed to ask some questions. I have read the book and also there is a video of don making fleece ambrosia on youtube. I was trying that method but with mead mash, (honey water) that is sterile.
Like i said, i sanitized everything with a no rinse solution for sanitizing brewing equipment and i didn't have tyvek shipping material like in his video, so I used an airlock and have breathable paper material on the outside of the airlock to reduce any mold contamination. I was just trying to find out if anyone had made this with a carboy and used any alternatives to tyvek and what they think i should have done. I mean it's done already and it's either going to be clear or contaminated, so now it's a waiting game. This is the middle of the virus bs, i i couldn't get sanitizer or isopropal to put in the airlock instead of water. That's something that some brewers use as a trick. I am wondering if i should have thrown yeast in it to keep the wild yeasts in it from making it taste like shit.
Yeah I hear you! Actually the fleece is a nice bright white until it matures, then gets very black and dusty. My personal experiments have led me to conclude that if I can get past the mucorphobia of the black spores, the resulting mass of myceliated foodstuffs is more concentrated with the active chemicals I'm looking for. It sure isn't pretty, but in working with the fleece I think it's worth it to let it get black and then process it how you will.
The similarity of the fleece to other mucors present in tempeh for example is pretty high though so I totally understand why there is so much fear around working with it.
My last contam experience was new actually, it was a mold that grew a little faster than the fleece, but was white, hairy, and ALSO had black spores. The difference was that the hyphae were very short, such that it didn't raise from the grain much at all, unlike the fleece. Also fleece to me smells kinda "meat"-like. This contam almost had a mint-like smell. I recently learned that a fungi is actually responsible for producing the "mint" within the mint plants, so perhaps there was a connection there.
I'm not a mycologist and have yet to crack open the basic textbooks on the subject, but I have experimented quite a bit and I truly believe that we have yet to unlock it's true potential. I'm way past the argument on whether it does or doesn't contain any actives, of course it does! But I'm very curious as to the nature of the chemical. It IS similar to muscaria, but it IS ALSO different, and difficult to put into words... and I am slowly working up towards being able to take a large dose. It requires a lot of material...

Using an airlock would work! But it would grow under the surface mostly and perform anaerobic respiration. No alcohol will be produced, only the "active chemical" and co2, unless you accidentally introduce yeast. The yeast will outpace the fleece so be careful. It will also take a lot longer too I think 2-3 times longer. If you wanted to combine fleece and yeast you may have some success if you start with fleece and let it go for a while before adding yeast. It will likely pack a strong punch. I had A glass of wine a little while after taking what I thought was a small amount of dried fleece, and I became pretty drunk. Pleasantly so, but it surprised me with the interaction. Many chemicals potential alcohol, so add the fleece to that list!
I gotta say that making the Ambrosia is definitely the most difficult just due to keeping the contams out. I will always recommend starting with grain, let it go black spores, or even barely sporulated and then start an ambrosia with those spores. Starting an ambrosia with ground amanita is asking for failure just because it isn't and cant be sterile. Think of it like you're trying to isolate the mycelium on agar.
You're one of the few even bothering to attempt this, so good luck to you!

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Re: Ambrosial Wine Experiments

Post by Kill_blind_elite » Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:35 pm

Yea, there have to be so many variables cause natural yeast exists eveeywhere and is part of the problem with off flavorse in brewing. For example; you can brew mead without adding yeast in because the bees naturally carry yeast from plants to their hives with the pollen. They speculate that whoever discovered the very first mead could have discovered it right in the beehive after it rained because natural yeast is present everywhere in nature.
So I'm sure given a long enough time, for sure honey and unpasturized grapejuice would ferment and cause alcohol, not sure about pasteurized. There is a guy on youtube that teaches a natural way (the vikings supposedly) made mead without introducing extra yeast.
I am determimed to make some work. So you were saying that you also found another mucor that was not what you were looking for growing? Do you have a way to take pictures ? Like a microscope or a jewelers loupe? I would love to see the difference. I didn't take pictures of mine cause it was primarily contaminated with green mold, which most likely was already in the amanita. I may need to get another source of amanita for this. I had some coming from Lithuania and it's litterally been sitting in chicago ics for over two months. Now chicago usps is shutting down. Kinda pissed about it, but ohh well.

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Re: Ambrosial Wine Experiments

Post by Mcpato » Sat Jun 06, 2020 6:56 am

Kill_blind_elite wrote:
Thu Jun 04, 2020 11:35 pm
I am determimed to make some work. So you were saying that you also found another mucor that was not what you were looking for growing? Do you have a way to take pictures ? Like a microscope or a jewelers loupe? I would love to see the difference. I didn't take pictures of mine cause it was primarily contaminated with green mold, which most likely was already in the amanita. I may need to get another source of amanita for this. I had some coming from Lithuania and it's litterally been sitting in chicago ics for over two months. Now chicago usps is shutting down. Kinda pissed about it, but ohh well.
When i started this fleece journey i bought many amanita caps that did not produce the fleece even though i followed the procedures a closely as I
Could. If the caps are dried via high heat they will be better for consuming and having higher muscimol content, but the fleece spores will be killed off. Eventually i bought a bag that produced 1 cap that consistently gave me fleece. It took a year to find that one cap, and i learned a lot about other contams. For a couple months before that, I had one mold that i kept experimenting with. I think it qualified as a mucor, it was very vigourous growing and fluffy white, and after fermenting the grain imparted a tangy flavor that i now recognize as just a wild tempeh strain. It just never gave any psychoactive effects, but it came from an amanita cap so i kept experimenting with it till i decided it couldn't be the fleece without any effects. For a while i wasnt sure if I was feeling anything or not. When you take enough fleece, there's no question. There are many mucor strains, and traditionally cultured varieties of tempeh from Indonesia apparently arent just one strain, but a collection of several. I'm plant based in my diet so i was really excited about finding a wild tempeh that i could culture myself. Honestly though it doesn't taste as good as fleece!

Unfortunately i don't work with other mold strains anymore, and i never took closeup shots. In these threads there are a few closeup shots of the growth of fleece, which i really wish i would have had when i started! Lol. I had one mold that i think is condidered a cobweb mold? But it sporulates a ton of black spores right at the base of the grain. It smelled exactly like dirt. Lol no i didnt taste that one, but it was kinda cool to find a really good mold to compost with! The problem with working with mold spores is that they contaminate you're area like crazy. My kitchen took multiple cleanings before i stopped seeing it crop up in my experiments.

If you cant pick your own amanitas i had success buying WA state A+ caps online. In the whole bag only one cap "resurrected" fleece, but you really only need success once, then it's easy to have an unlimited supply!

Good luck!

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